SRI LANKA SHRIEKED WHEN D.S. FELL

by ECB Wijeyasinghe

Schoolboys at the bottom of the class, wherever they May be, can take heart from at least one dominating figure in Ceylon history. In his youth he preferred playing with a bat and ball to poring over boring text-books. In course of time, by sheer industry and integrity, the last lad in the form lived to become the first in the hearts of his countrymen.

That miracle was performed by Don Stephen Senanayake whose life in some ways resembled that of another colossus of this century, Winston Churchill. The famous British Prime Minister spent three years in the second form at Harrow, the celebrated British public school. When he was riled about it, Churchill hit back by saying that he knew three times as much as his classmates knew, and he probably did.

Possibly the same thing happened at S. Thomas’ College in Mutwal where Don Stephen cheerfully carried the wooden spoon from one classroom to another. Some of his friends, with some pretensions to literacy, said that the initials “D.S.” stood for Duns Scotus, adding that the derogatory headgear, the Dunce Cap, was made to fit his head. Actually, as a matter of fact, as D. S. would have said, Duns Scotus was one of the most influential mediaeval scholars. He was a friar and a teacher at Oxford and later in Paris. Owing to his skill in controversy, especially against the metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas, his contemporaries gave him the title of Doctor Subtilis. It also earned for him the enmity of the ancient Thomists, who must not be confused with modern Thomians.

TRAGEDY

All this preamble leads us to the anniversary of the day that Sri Lanka shrieked when Senanayake fell. It may be useful to recall the background to that tragic event. He was then the Prime Minister, the first in independent Ceylon and D. S. Senanayake was taking his usual morning ride on the Galle Face Green.

It happened on Friday, March 21, 1952, and keeping the P.M. company were Sir Richard Aluvihare, the IGP. and G. G. Ponnambalam, one of his Cabinet Ministers. They were all good riders and after a preliminary canter, the horses broke into a gallop, keeping almost abreast of each other but with the P.M.’s going strongly ahead. To the utter consternation of his companions on the Green, Senanayake fell off the saddle and somersaulted twice before he alighted on his side.

He was unconscious and bleeding from the nose when he was rushed to a nursing home. The general belief was that he was the victim of a stroke of paralysis. Dr. M. V. P. Peiris, one of Ceylon’s most brilliant surgeons, attended on him assisted by Dr. R. MacCharles, Professor of Surgery of Manitoba University, who happened to be in the Island at the time.

Wireless messages were immediately flashed as the Ceylon doctors wished to have the opinion of the world’s greatest neuro-surgeon, Sir Hugh Cairns, the Nuffield Professor of Surgery at Oxford University. Sir Hugh became famous during World War II for his delicate brain operations on wounded soldiers. He once saved the lives of Lawrence of Arabia and General George S. Patton.

It was at this point that the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stepped in, and displayed not only his magnanimity, but the other virtues which made him win the war. Churchill gave the immediate order: “Spare nothing. Get a plane in the air at once to take Sir Hugh Cairns to Ceylon.” Within a few hours Sir Hugh, with two other doctors, including Walpole Lewin, and two nurses were ready to fly out. A speedy R. A. F. Hastings aircraft was on the runway. Two crews were ready to go aboard so that they could have alternate spells of rest and duty.

Just then a telephone message from Ceylon reached Sir Hugh that the P.M. was sinking and advising the flight to be called off. Meanwhile Dr. Jacob Chandy of Vellore and Dr. D. Jooma of Karachi, two of the leading neuro-surgeons of India and Pakistan, had arrived, but it was too late. D. S. Senanayake died on March 22, 1952 and everybody wept.

VISION

He was a man of vision and also a man of action who appeared to have “all the centuries in him”. From the time he became Minister of Agriculture in 1931 until his death, he restored ancient tanks, built new ones, refashioned rural Ceylon so much that many people thought that Parakrama Bahu the Great, who reigned in the twelfth century, had come to life once more.

Today, thanks to D. S. Senanayake, we have Minneriya and Hingurakgoda, the Parakrama Samudra, Minipe, Gal Oya and a number of other giant projects which have provided thousands and thousands of men and women with food and employment.

Senanayake was also a man without any religious or communal prejudices. Two Tamils on whom he leaned heavily were C. Suntheralingam and Sir Kanthiah Vaithianathan, both devout Hindus. Another good friend was T. B. Jayah, the great Malay educationist. Earlier in life he always sought the advice of two eminent Roman Catholics, E. J. Samerawickreme, K. C. and Albert A. Wickremesinghe, the redoubtable Kegalle lawyer, whose work in connection with the Shooting Commission after the 1915 riots, fired Senanayake’s spark of patriotism.

Dr. M. C. M. Kaleel, the President of the Ceylon Muslim League, at the time of Senanayake’s death called him “Ceylon’s greatest son, because he welded the elements in the country into one united whole”.

LINCOLN

That is why he has also been described as the “Abraham Lincoln of the East”. At a memorial service Warden R. S. de Saram emphasised the resemblance with the American patriot and dwelt on his homeliness, sincerity, simplicity and honesty of mind. There was not a dry eye in the congregation at the old school Chapel when Canon de Saram asked Thomians young and Thomians old always to remember, with thankfulness to God, the name of D. S. Senanayake. It was a touching tribute from a Christian prelate and principal to a Buddhist old boy.

Senanayake had an astonishing humility and was completely devoid of inhibitions. Once, during the short time I acted as Information Officer, in the absence of Herbert Hulugalle, he asked me to call at “Temple Trees” to give me some instructions. While he did so, he did a complete change of clothes from sarong and singlet to his workaday suit. One could not then help admiring the rippling muscles on his bare body. Though he was well past 66, the dreadful disease of diabetes had failed to make a dent on his magnificent physique.

Though writers of all countries and climes have paid high tributes to the wisdom and tolerance of Senanayake, it was the Ceylon journalist S. J. K. Crowther, his former school-mate, who summed up his character neatly in a few phrases. Crowther was a Tamil Christian but his admiration for Senanayake knew no bounds. He said the PM’s most admirable quality was his natural dignity. Senanayake refused to play down to the mob. If he wanted, he could have out-paced the tub-thumpers, but he would not cheapen himself. Without losing touch with the common man, he never made himself common.

Don Stephen Senanayake’s mortal remains were cremated on March 29, 1952, at Independence Square, almost at the very spot where he received the gift of freedom for his country. On that occasion it was a Burgher poet Hilaire D. Jansz, then Editor of the “Observer”, whose poignant lines most aptly expressed the sorrow of a bereaved nation with these words:

That mighty heart lay still, that mighty frame Asleep for ever, while the multitude Moved in a ceaseless stream of pious grief Amid the silent eloquence of flowers Today he will be borne through doleful streets Past those who throng to pay him reverence,Their guide, their guard, their father and their friend, And when he comes to his last journey’s end, Where sad mortality to ashes must Be burned by fires unrelenting, From Freedom’s consecrated ground will rise. The flaming beacon of his deathless name.

(Excerpted from The Good Among the Best first published in 1980)